A simplified apparatus for the synthesis of a plurality of compounds, e.g., oligomers or polymers, is desired for many applications.
For example, in the art of peptide synthesis, there is a need for a device to simply and quickly synthesize anywhere from a few thousand to several million truly random peptide sequences. Houghton (Houghton, R. A. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 82:5131-5135 (1985)) employees a "tea bag" method using standard Boc amino acid resin in polypropylene mesh packets with standard deprotecting, neutralization, coupling and wash protocols of the original solid phase procedure of Merrifield, R. B., J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 85:2149-2154 (1963). Hundreds of peptides were synthesized simultaneously. Geysen et al. (Molecular Immunology 23: 709-715 (1986)) systematically synthesized peptides on polyethylene rods in a relatively short time. Geysen employed a microcomputer program to direct the once-a-day addition of the correct amino acid to the correct rod.
The Advanced Chemtech ACT Model 350 Peptide Synthesizer is capable of concurrently synthesizing up to 96 peptide sequences in up to 96 respective reaction chambers. The apparatus is not capable of concurrently synthesizing larger numbers of peptide sequences, and also requires the number of reaction chambers to at least equal the number of peptide sequences to be synthesized. These various techniques are capable of generating only a hundred to a few thousand peptides at a time.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an apparatus to quickly synthesize several thousand to several million substantially random peptide sequences in which a single peptide species can be readily and quickly isolated. Such a collection of peptide sequences would assist in the development of agents that could block, promote, or otherwise affect cellular reactions that involve recognition and binding. These agents would be useful in the treatment or diagnosis of a number of diseases. Similarly, knowledge of the peptide sequence greatly facilitates the study of the antibody-antigen reaction. More importantly, however, knowledge of the peptide sequence makes it possible to synthesize peptides that can be used as diagnostic and therapeutic agents.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for forming a plurality of compounds formed on solid phase supports by repeatedly coupling various subunits onto solid supports followed by the randomization and redistribution of these samples.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide an automated apparatus to synthesize this plurality of polymers.